Threaded Order Chronological Order
| Since there was a reading | |
| Last Edit: dramedy 05:40 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
| Posted by: dramedy 05:37 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
| In reply to: SQUARE ONE - ArnoldMBrockman 03:31 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
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| One can assume it fairly far along in the structure and songs. Sondheim was expecting a year to get to broadway from the reading. Unfortunately, I do think he does a lot of tinkering while in previews and out of town shows like developing Gold to Road Show. Can someone do the rewrites in his voice is really the question. I personally don’t have much hope in it being good. Although I liked road show and think it has one of the best love songs he ever wrote, it pales in comparison to his great works. I think many would argue that even passion and assassins fall short and really his last great work was Into the woods, which is produced often. But that probably is true of most great teams like kander and ebb and cy coleman hitting broadway in their 3os with later shows dwindling in success (curtains, the visit, steel pier). Rodger and Hammerstein really had great success as a team rather late in their careers starting around age 40 where both had other partners earlier with broadway success. |
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| When do composers and lyricists begin to lose their mojo? | |
| Posted by: portenopete 12:58 am EDT 06/17/22 | |
| In reply to: Since there was a reading - dramedy 05:37 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
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| One lyricist who went out on a high note was Dorothy Fields who was 69 when Seesaw opened (she passed away a year later). I would argue that Assassins is top drawer Sondheim and Passion maybe the next tier down and Sondheim was 64 when the latter opened. Jerry Herman was only about 50 when his last Broadway show opened! Cole Porter was still writing fine tunes well into his 60's. But definitely the years between 30 and 50 seem to be the richest period in a composer/lyricist's working life. Sondheim was fortunate that his work was so often revived, which kept him participating actively into extreme old age. And we are fortunate to still have such Golden Age giants as Charles Strouse, John Kander, Sheldon Harnick Tom Jones and Lee Adams still with us in their 90's still dispensing wisdom and inspiring younger writers. |
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| re: When do composers and lyricists begin to lose their mojo? | |
| Posted by: StageLover 07:35 am EDT 06/17/22 | |
| In reply to: When do composers and lyricists begin to lose their mojo? - portenopete 12:58 am EDT 06/17/22 | |
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| In DePALMA, the Netflix doc on director Brian DePalma, he states that film directors make their best work in their 30s, 40s & 50s, as well. | |
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| re: Since there was a reading | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 06:45 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:31 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
| In reply to: Since there was a reading - dramedy 05:37 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
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| I am pretty sure Sondheim himself said, on Colbert I think, that the show was almost done and ready for production, which he was eyeing for ASAP or the following season. I share your hesitation to think it will be notably good. But I don't fully agree on the rest. I think for Road Show... the subject was the problem. A lot of what's in that show was written quite a bit before we saw it, which is the only show of his this has really happened with... I don't remember when each song or section was started on or if the bulk was written in the couple of years leading up to the 99 Mendes directed workshop with Lane and Garber, or if he's ever said, but I know he'd been thinking about the show for decades. So I don't think it was his diminishing access to his genius or his well being nearly dry that was the problem as much as that he seemed to always *want* to be inspired by and creatively activated by the Mizner brothers and their story and what he saw it reflecting about America much more than he ever was or than ever actually inspired him musically or lyrically. I actually wonder if Ahrens & Flaherty wouldn't have done better or had an easier time finding a musical with the subject. But It's not as if he started writing it in his 80s and the result is just a reflection of his age and having run out of inspired genius, he started his "process" with it, at least gestating it, in his prime at least. I'll always wonder/wish he had just given up on that show and written something else entirely in the late 90s. Maybe Square One. Who knows how his mind or his creative well would have been accessed or applied for something else. But he sure did get hung up on getting Road Show written and fixed etc. I'm glad he has a tryptic of musicals about America with Weidman, but I bet they could have found a different, more compelling or inspiring show for the 3rd one. But who ever knows. I also think, personally, he is not very good at revising shows or songs *after* he's out of the creative period of birthing the show originally. Few of his revisions to any show or song have been improvements, some are good or just as good and I get why they were done, but many are not only not improvements but weaken the song or show, and replacement songs he writes are almost never as good and usually (or even always) seem like second tier Sondheim. He seems to be a writer who is mindbogglingly good in the 1-2 year period he is actually excited by and writing the show as it heads to and opens on Broadway... and after he's moved on, coming back to it is not his strength. Even when that period is more like 4-6 years. With Road Show/Bounce/Wise Guys, it was a... what... 40 year creative timeline? And even from first workshops of Wise Guys to Prince's mounting of Bounce was 4 years apart and with an entirely new director at the helm and cast ... and from Wise Guys to the NYC premiere of Road Show was 9 years and a 2nd whole other director and approach to the show and cast. And when he may have been creatively depleted by then after 5 decades of consistent excellence and brilliance, not to mention being in his late 60s when the Wise Guys train really started running and and mid 70s for the Road Show process. But I still do really feel that, try though they did, this just wasn't the show for him. And while I actually really liked Road Show at the Public and thought it was a solidly good musical that generally worked, with a solidly good score ... no it wasn't really anything to go wild for or fall in love with, and I think I actually preferred the earlier versions of the show overall. I think Prince's production of Bounce should have come to NYC. And I don't agree that Assassins or Passion fall short. I think they're quite different than his other great works, but not necessarily lesser. Assassins is certainly a favorite to produce around the world despite the darkness, controversial subject, and non-traditional nature of the storytelling, so that says something. And he has said many times that Assassins is the most perfect show he's written (I think it's Sweeney, Sunday, or Follies original version), and the most like the show they set out to write -- whatever that means is anyone's guess in applying it as a pro or con to any other show he wrote. And I think Passion is just one of the most beautiful musicals ever. But of course it's all subjective. I think some even think his prime passed with Merrily. But I can absolutely agree that whether his show lost something after the late-mid 80s or not, after the mid 90s there's no question. |
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| re: Since there was a reading | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 07:57 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Since there was a reading - Chazwaza 06:31 pm EDT 06/16/22 | |
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| Irving Berlin, who was a friend of Addison’s and an investor in Boca Raton, tinkered with a musical based on the brothers for years. It had about as many names as Sondheim’s. Some of the songs he wrote for it are on the Unsung Irving Berlin album. Laura, sweltering in LA |
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